The Gifted (3 page)

“I don’t know,” I said.

I turned to Han. “So strangers don’t smile
when they pass you?”

“No,” he said.

I thought of the general and now I knew what
seemed odd about the way he looked. He never smiled.

“And they don't offer to help carry your
books or help you in other ways either I suppose?”

“No,” said Han. “Never.” We came to the door
marked with a “D” like we were told. I pressed a button on the
right and it slid open to a large, circular room with several doors
around the perimeter. The middle of the room went down three steps
and at the bottom was a large table with chairs.

“But why?” I continued. “Why do people do it
for me?”

Somebody pushed me from behind into the room.
I stumbled down the steps. “Because,” said Guido, “it’s your gift!
Aren’t you listening!
Everyone
notices you, wants to help
you, smiles and everything! Everyone
ignores
me. Seems I got
the bad end of the deal, if you ask me. I just wish I knew about it
before I got here.”

I wasn’t sure where he was except for the
second he pushed me. Then, there he was! Afterward, I could only
hear his voice which was harsh and bitter, but didn’t notice him
anymore. Everyone was mad today, but now I wasn’t. Now, I was too
tired for anger. “There must be something good about going
unnoticed though,” I said. “You won't get bullied at school.
Teachers won't call on you when you don't know the answer.”

“How about this, Guido,” said Tracy as she
entered from one of the rooms. Her eyes were still red, but no
tears. “You can pull pranks on anyone you want and no one will even
know you were there. Now that would be cool!” She smiled.

“I'm not much of a prankster,” said Guido. “I
just want to be noticed.”

“So you like pranks?” I asked Tracy. “I think
I'm going to keep my door locked with you two around. Guido can go
anywhere unnoticed, and Tracy actually wants to.”

At this Tracy looked excited. “Hey Guido,
imagine what we could do if we were together!”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “like I said, I’m locking
my door tonight.”

I took a look at the doors on the outside of
the room. Tracy saw me. “These are imprint doors. At least that’s
what they told me to call them when I first got here a couple of
weeks ago. The first time you touch the door it will memorize your
touch and then only you can open it. This is mine here,” and she
pointed to the far door to the right.

We each walked up to a different door and
touched it. After my door made a series of whirring noises, it
opened. “I’m going to bed,” I said and stepped into a fairly large
room with a double bed against the far wall, a bathroom door, and a
desk in the middle with a computer. The door closed behind me.
There were books already on the shelves with titles such as,
The
Art of War
,
How to Disable a Man Easily Without Weapons
,
and
Military Aircraft You Should Know
. Then on a smaller
shelf by the bed were other books. These were all religious. There
was the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Teachings of the Dalai Lama, and
a couple of Bibles. Just my luck, no books on sports anywhere.

I remembered the verse above the new hole in
our school wall. I thought I’d look it up. It was Psalm 116:6. My
parents sent me to that school, and they would talk about the Bible
a lot, but I never really read it on my own. When I found the
verse, I read it: “The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I
was facing death, and he saved me.” Whoa! I had never seen the last
part of that verse before. Facing death? I hoped I was not going to
face death. I had always been taken care of and never really had
much to fear before, but this was all new to me. That night after
reading that verse I prayed to God. I got on my knees like I had
seen in a picture somewhere and prayed that God would keep me safe.
I didn’t know about this training thing, but for some reason it
scared me. After the prayer I felt a little better.

As soon as I put away the Bible, the computer
monitor turned on above my desk. A man on the screen with red hair
and freckles said, “Andy, you don't know me yet, but I'm going to
be your personal trainer. There are a lot of things to learn while
you're here and I can help you through it. You will meet me at the
lecture hall tomorrow morning at 8am. I will see you there.” The
computer screen went blank.

I saw a clock on the wall that read just
after 10. That was pretty late for me, so finding some pajamas in a
drawer under my bed, I got dressed and climbed in. Before I knew
it, I was asleep.

The next morning I took a shower in my little
bathroom and got dressed. I didn’t know what kind of training to
expect so I dressed in sweats and a t-shirt I found in some
drawers. I stepped out of my room at 7:45 and saw that Han and
Tracy were already waiting.

A bowl of fruit lay on the table.
“Breakfast?” I said.

“Yes,” said Tracy. I grabbed a few grapes and
plopped them in my mouth. Tracy threw away her banana peel and Han
had a pile peach pits on a napkin.

Han gave a big smile. “Good morning!”

“I hope you slept well,” said Tracy, also
smiling. “Can we walk with you?” I was reminded of why they were
smiling. It’s not like they had a choice. I did not feel like
smiling back.

“Sure,” I said. “Where's Guido.”

“Right here,” I heard a voice say as I
tripped over something and fell. The something being Guido. I
almost choked on a grape. “You’re right Tracy, it is fun!” said
Guido.

Lying there on the floor, Guido reached out a
hand, just as Tracy and Han came toward me. “Can I give you a
hand?” they both said at the same time.

I exhaled loudly. “It's my gift, isn't it,” I
said.

“I guess so,” said Tracy. “Are you telling me
you don’t want us to be nice to you anymore? ‘Cause I can give you
a punch in the face if that will make you feel better.”

“No, no, Tracy. That’s okay. Hey, let's see
your gift. Fire sounds cool.”

“Hot,” she said. “You mean fire sounds hot.
Okay, I’ll demonstrate, but we have to hurry. Somebody turn off the
lights!”

“No prob,” said Guido and it was immediately
dark.

“Just wait a minute,” she spoke quieter now.
“I kind of have to get warmed up.”

“Warmed up, that’s funny,” said Han, like
he’d read it out of a dictionary.

It was quiet and dark, but we waited. “Now
look,” she said.

At first I didn’t see anything, but I could
smell smoke. “Tracy,” I said. “What are you doing? Is this
safe?”

“Just getting warmed up,” she said. “Keep
your eyes open.”

Suddenly a piece of paper ignited into
flames, outlining her hand. “Cool trick,” said Guido. “Why couldn’t
I get that gift?”

She looked kind of creepy in the fire light.
“Yeah, but it's more fun when it's someone's socks. When they're
wearing them.” She sounded scary when she said this.

“Locks on the doors and both eyes open,” I
said. “I suggest we all watch out for Miss Pyro over there. And
maybe we should all buy fireproof socks while we're at it.”

We walked out into the hallway. Upon entering
the conference room from the other night, a number of adults who
had been talking to one another turned to us and smiled.

“You're so weird!” said Tracy, and stepped
away from me like I was a vampire.

“Huh?” I said.

Guido slapped me too hard on the back. “He
enters a room and everyone loses their brains. That can't be
natural. And he didn't figure all that out until just last
night?”

I felt hurt. How could I be friends with
these kids? Did I even want them to be friends?

I said that everyone in the room smiled when
I entered, but that’s not completely true. A couple, as if
remembering something, stopped mid-smile and put a severe look on
their faces. But not the man I had seen on the screen the night
before. His smile was broad and genuine, with one tooth missing in
the middle bottom row of teeth.

“Now that everyone is here, we can get
started,” said the general.

We sat down around the table, adults on one
side and kids on the other. “My name is General Garcia. I am the
commanding officer here. Each of you is here because we rescued
you, and because you have gifts, that until recently we had no idea
existed except in story books.”

“And now that we’ve rescued you, we are going
to use you. We want to know what your kidnappers are up to, and you
can help us find out.”

“What if we don't want to go?” blurted out
Tracy.

“I might remind you that one block of your
town was decimated as they searched for you. If not for us, you
would already be in their clutches?”

Tracy shut her mouth and looked pale.

“Now each of you has been assigned a personal
trainer. I was told they introduced themselves to you through your
computer systems last night. Good. Please find your trainer and do
what they tell you.” Then General Garcia turned away from us and
collected his papers.

I walked over to the man I had seen on the
screen from the night before. He had red hair, a straight jaw, and
was all lean muscle. He smiled at me, holding out his hand as I
shook it. “My name is Greg and I will be your personal trainer.
Follow me.”

That was it. He didn't tell me anymore about
himself, how he began working here or even what we were really
training to do. He took large strides out of the room. I followed
closely behind, feeling like a puppy on a leash.

Once in the hallway, he picked up his pace to
a jog. “Follow me!”

“Right,” I said to myself. Then louder, “On
my way” I ran to catch up.

We ran for a few minutes until it was hard
for me to breathe. My side ached and I felt like I was going to get
sick. Then he slowed to a quick walk. I caught up to him and he
immediately broke into another run. How long was this hallway
anyway? It stretched on forever, and always curving to the left.
“When do we get there?” I asked, panting like a dog.

“Get there?” he said. “We've been there the
whole time.” He stopped and walked again.

I wanted to ask him another question but I
couldn’t decide whether to talk or to breathe. I chose to
breathe.

“My job is to get you in shape. We don’t know
what you might face out there, but one thing is certain: The better
shape you are in, the better your odds of survival.”

“Survival?” I said, feeling a pang of
worry.

“Did I say survival?” he said. “I meant
success.” And then his pace picked up again. I tried to follow, but
my lungs were burning, finally slowing down because of the
pain.

Now I am not a lazy, couch-potato, video game
playing bum. I like sports and play basketball and soccer every
year. When I get into high school I might even go out for football.
I like exercise. But I have to admit I must have been a bit out of
shape. This guy was killing me!

Finally, when I thought I might puke my guts
out, he stopped. “How did that feel?” he said with a smile.

At first I tried to talk but all I could do
was wheeze and cough, breathing heavily. “Is this in order to
prepare us for torture?” I said between gulps of air.

“Oh no,” he said with a smile. “This is what
we call a warm-up. Let's hit the gym.” Was this guy for real?

He took me to a room filled with weight
machines and free weights. “Okay,” he said, “Let me see you take
your shirt off.” I took off my shirt, embarrassed. I thought of gym
class, skins verses shirts. “Just as I suspected,” he said. “When I
get done with you, where that flat chest is now, you will have a
slab of muscle you could bounce a nickel off.”

“Great,” I said “that's been a lifelong goal
of mine. Bouncing nickels off my chest will really come in handy
back at school.”

He stopped and gave me a hard stare. “You
know you are doing this so there will be a school to come back to.
Remember what they did to it the first time?” I swallowed hard and
took a deep breath. “Think about that when you get tired.”

Greg sat me down at a bench press machine and
I did twelve reps, rested and then another twelve. Afterwards I did
arm curls, and then tricep extensions. If you don't know what any
of these are, let me just say we did a lot of arm exercises. Just
lifting my arms was hard afterwards.

We went from one form of exercise to another
until Greg declared that it was lunch time. I followed him to the
lunch area where we saw the other kids. Greg sat with the trainers
at one table and I went to the food line. This cafeteria was a lot
like the one at school, but everything was healthy. There were
cooked vegetables, a selection of fruit, some chicken, and
burritos. Not a bag of chips in sight! The soda machines didn’t
have soda, only water and juice. I got a burrito and some apple
juice and sat down with the other kids.

“That was great!” said Tracy with a smile on
her face. Was it me or was she really happy?

“You're kidding,” I said. “Why? Do you like
pain?”

“What do you mean? I just loved the tour, and
the underground gardens are beautiful. My personal trainer is so
nice. I'm so glad I'm here. Did you guys have fun? What did you
do?”

“Pain,” was all I said.

“Weights,” said Han. “I hurt.”

“Me too,” said Guido. “It hurts just to sit.
Or to breathe. Running, then jogging, then running again. Then
weights.”

“That's what you guys did?” Tracy said.

“I guess your trainer has other ideas for
you,” I said.

We didn’t talk a whole lot. The boys were too
tired, so we let Tracy do all the talking. She was good at it.

After lunch, Greg got me and we continued to
train, but this time it wasn’t physical. Greg had me walk into a
room full of furniture or other items, look at it for 30 seconds,
and then walk back out. “So what did you see?” He asked, “Describe
it all.”